Ch. 3 Attention & Consciousness

Divided attention (2)

• The ability to focus on more than one task at a time

• Focusing on and paying equal attention to both tasks

Selective attention

Ability to focus on only factor/stimulus while ignoring other distractions

Sustained attention

Ability to focus on one specific task for a continuous amount of time without being distracted

Alternating attention

Ability to switch your focus back and forth between tasks that require different cognitive demands

Mindfulness meditation engages a specific network

There’s a connection between mindfulness meditation and the executive attention network

Research findings on the emotional Stroop task

Those w/ phobias significantly slower on anxiety-inducing words vs individual without phobias

Dichotic listening

Registering different auditory info in each ear

Feature-present vs feature-absent effect

Feature-present objects are located faster than feature-absent

Pop out effect

When the target item captures attention automatically

The impact of unilateral spatial neglect (2)

• Damage to the right hemisphere → ignores objects in left visual field

• Damage the left hemisphere → ignores object in right visual field

Serial vs parallel search (3)

• Serial – focusing attention on one item at a time

• Parallel – spreading focus across properties of object(s); distributed attention

  • Reaction time is similar for many vs few items

Attentional bias

When people pay more attention to some stimuli or features

Isolated-feature/combined-feature effect

People can typically locate an isolated feature more quickly than a combined feature

Damage to parietal region correlates with…

Visual search impairment

Blindsight

Vision without awareness of vision

Rebound effect

Initial suppression of a thought can produce more thoughts on the suppressed topic

Feature-integration theory (3)

• Sometimes we process all parts of a scene simultaneously → distributed attention

• Sometimes we process each item in a scene one at a time → focused attention

• Distributed & focused attention form a continuum, rather than two distinct categories

Consciousness definition

Awareness about external world and internal perceptions, images, thoughts, memories, and feelings